Is named for the nation in which it is set, a sprawling land that lies completely below the ground. Many inhabitants are exiles from the Empire that controls the surface world or rebels who came to escape its domination.

Others are the descendents of earlier generations. Some come for what they hope will be relatively short stays until they can acquire sufficient wealth, most often from mining resources or hunting monsters to recover their caches of treasure. They dwell in colossal caverns, smaller open areas and the miles of passages that join them, with all but the most recent arrivals sharing a unique pallor that comes from not seeing the sun. Life has never been easy in this gloomy realm, but not even the most prescient of sages could have anticipated that it would become even more hazardous. It seems as if every possible threat has returned, all at the same time. The savages and dark creatures native to the lower tunnels have been seen with increasing regularity on the higher levels from which they had been driven out.

In addition, massive beasts are terrorizing the cities. Protected by powerful magic, they have established new lairs within the communities, emerging to wander and kill with nothing to impede them. The average citizens have also been affected.

Normally peaceful, they exhibit a seemingly irresistible paranoia that makes them highly erratic and potentially dangerous. No one knows what is causing this great upheaval, but you've stumbled upon something that may be a clue. Our quest for the developer-side post-release point of view on Spiderweb Software's game, which is available for the PC and Mac, led us to President and Designer Jeff Vogel. The Project Avernum 4 is a fantasy role-playing game of the old school, a single-player adventure and the first all-new game in the world of Avernum in a number of years. It was developed by Spiderweb Software, a small indie game company located in Seattle. Avernum 4 is a game with a small budget. The graphics and sound effects are relatively simple, but the game is huge and a lot of fun.

We have another series called Geneforge that is very dialogue- and plot-oriented. I wanted Avernum to have lots of action, a huge variety of different foes and scripted encounters, and plenty of cool loot to hunt for. The Avernum saga tells the tale of the Empire and Avernum. The Empire controls the entire known surface of the world, and has for a very long time. Once, the Empire cast its petty criminals and malcontents into a one-way portal down to Avernum, a subterranean prison-nation where they were to spend the rest of their (most likely short) lives. The first three Avernum games tell the story of the Avernites - how they struggled for survival, fought the Empire, and eventually gained their freedom and independence. Now, in Avernum 4, it is some years after the events of the first trilogy.

Avernum is free and prosperous. But then, overnight, things go wrong. Monsters appear in areas thought settled. Creatures in the dark, underground rivers begin to destroy any boats that dare travel. And worst of all, huge, powerful shades appear in the cities, clouding the minds of the citizens and destroying people at random. Your adventurers are the ones who stumble upon a clue that hints at what is going on. And as luck would have it, you are the ones who might be able to solve the problem.

Also, Avernum 4 is a purely single-player role-playing game. These days, that's a bit of a rarity.

The Team As always, the team making the game was a small one. I did all of the programming and most of the design. I had a design assistant who helped with the terrain and another assistant who rendered all of the creature graphics. A freelance artist did the terrain icons, line art and splash screen. And that's pretty much it. We're a small group that makes big games. High-Level Goals Avernum 4 takes place in Avernum, which is a very weird and cool place, a whole subterranean world, complete with its own alien races like the reptilian slithzerikai, the nephilim and the bizarre vahnatai.

No elves or dwarves here. And what I wanted to do was create an enormous, sprawling world with jillions of characters and quests plus so many locations that only the most dedicated will see them all. I wanted Avernum 4 to be action-based.

We have another series called Geneforge that is very dialogue- and plot-oriented. I wanted Avernum to have lots of action, a huge variety of different foes and scripted encounters, and plenty of cool loot to hunt for. One end result of this, by the way, is a huge variety of very cool encounters. There are all sorts of enemies, with different attacks, special abilities and weaknesses you need to figure out. It's not a good idea to get too complacent.

Overview Avernum 4 is the fourth episode in the series, released in late 2005 for Mac, and later in 2006 for PC. Boasting a new engine, it features new art and mechanical improvements over previous titles. The new engine was created by mashing together the engine, and the engine used in previous Avernum titles. This allowed Avernum 4 to retain its familiar turn-based gameplay, but with the style point-and-click navigation. This episode has over 80 areas to explore.You can choose a variety of sides, each with their own beliefs and cities.

Original PC System Requirements. PC Running Windows 98 or later or Macintosh running System 10.3.9 or later. 50 MB free RAM. 200 MB hard disk space. 1024x768 screen resolution with 16 bit color (Windows) or 32 bit color (Macintosh).

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Avernum 4 runs natively on Intel Macintoshes. Steam System Requirements. Operating system:Windows® XP / Vista™ / Windows® 7.

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Processor:1.6 GHz CPU. Memory:512 MB. Hard disk space:300MB. Video: OpenGL compliant graphics card. Sound:Sound card.